This Old Fuddy Duddy tries to keep up on what’s hip and all that, although really these terms like hipster, slacker, or whatever, have been around for like, more than a 100 years.
I’ve been reading about the Hipster Effect and it seems to be a Hipster all you have to be is a Millennial who wears a flannel shirt, beanie hat and a beard. Or if you’re a female Millennial, all that without the beard.
It also seems to this Generation Xer/Baby Buster/Baby Boomer — and Generation Xers are going to hate this since they seem to be the biggest critics and rivals of Millennials — that Generation Xers and Millennial Hipsters are a lot alike and almost interchangeable. I came to this conclusion after watching the “Homerpalooza” Simpsons episode from 1996, which in my opinion is the consummate look at Generation X and hilarious.
As a Generation Xer/Baby Buster/Baby Boomer I’ll also take my shot at both Generation Xers and Millennial Hipsters. They don’t seem to understand what irony is. As the Alanis Morissette song “Rain” demonstrates.
I read recently how a man threatened to sue MIT Technology Review for using his image in a story about how all hipsters look alike entitled “The Hipster Effect: Why Anti-conformists Always End Up Looking the Same.” To prove the publication’s point, the man sued the publication thinking it was a photo of him even though actually a stock photo from Getty Images of well, any Hipster Man.
The man sent this heated e-mail to the publication: “Your lack of basic journalistic ethics in both the manner in which you ‘reported’ this uncredited nonsense, and the slanderous, unnecessary use of my picture without permission demands a response, and I am, of course, pursuing legal action.”
All I’ve got to say is — Isn’t It Ironic?
— Charles Whisnand
